Featured Cache

CoTM

This introduction starts off with a big Congratulations to the 100th Cacher of the Month for the MBGA, H.Erectus&Lucy . H.Erectus (known henceforth as H.e) is a retired biology teacher. He's an avid outdoorsman who helps maintain ski trails in The Pas area of Northern Manitoba. It's quite evident from their stats that they spend a good deal of the winter in Arizona as more than half of their finds are in that state. As good as H.e is at caching, when he is stumped, Lucy (Mrs H.e), can always find what his eyes miss. With the departure from The Pas of slippery_1 and Stonagal, they're really the only avid cachers left in the area. This makes my heart sad. We need to recruit new hiders and finders in that area! Stat!

Their photo was a selfie taken at Kiss - GwPS #10 (GC48G65). This was the cache where they earned their "comma" (1,000th cache found).

Please congratulate H.erectus&Lucy on being the MBGA Cachers of the Month for August, and for being the 100th COTM selected.

With both of us being cachers for many years, I would have hoped to meet goldfinch99. Looking at his stats, I see that we only have 1 event in common, and I cannot remember if I had an opportunity to talk to him. I must work on my social skills! Not having any anecdotes to tell you about him, I'll have to rely on his caching stats to speak to me. He's been caching for almost six years now and has found over 2200 caches. Seeing that he took a 3 year hiatus, I think that's quite a feat, having amassed all but 4 of those in the last 2.5 years. I am glad that he has returned to active caching, and look forward to meeting him. Read on to learn more about the July MBGA Cacher of the Month, goldfinch99.

I've known this month's caching team for quite some time. Mr. Okeeffek seems quiet and thoughtful, and has put out some challenging puzzle caches (which I love!). Mrs. Okeeffek is very exhuberant and lively. She now sits on the MBGA board. Together, with their daughter, inga101, they've accumulated over 5,250 finds in a seemingly short time period. They'd also started a caching streak in July of 2013, and I think they're still going and should soon hit the milestone 366 consecutive days! Good luck guys! I wish I had the stamina to do that ... but after last winter? Brrrrrr ... At least the worst is over! Read on to learn more about this month's Cacher of the Month, Okeeffek!

Beware the Jabbywockyz, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!

(Holy Dinah! I just scared myself!)

I haven't cached in the Dauphin area since 2007. Back then there were 3 (yes, three) whole caches in town. All of which were hidden by the Dragonfreys who lived an hour south in Onanole. This surprised me to no end as Dauphin is the largest town in the area, and Swan River (the next largest town) had dozens of caches! Well, it seems that things have changed and the cache hides are coming fast and furious! And now there's GeoArt in the province! Well done!!

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe." What Lewis Carroll is trying to say here is: Congratulations and read on to learn more about the MBGA Geocachers of the Month, Jabbywockyz!

This month's cachers, pugbaby, are a family of five. Aside from Mr and Mrs Pugbaby, there's lilpug, who's an elementary school aged son, and also 1 year old twin sons. Aside from their human babies, there are also their furbabies, the pugs. Although my memory is dodgy at times, I do believe one of the first times that I met Mr and Mrs was at an MBGA Karoake event. Mrs Pugbaby was brave enough to sing a few times. We had a blast listening to our group get up and sing Geocaching themed variations of classic songs ... along with some "pickled" locals. All in all it was a fun night. Since that night in September 2010, I watched as the young family grew from two, to three, and then lept to five. Even with their growing family, they still find time to go caching. Read on to learn about April's MBGA Cacher of the Month, pugbaby!

Stonagal serves on the Board of Directors for the MBGA. He's listed as the "MBGA Statistician" ... so, let's see how his stats hold up. In 2013, he found an average of 5.1342 caches per day (I have to use that many decimals because we're talking statistics here ... we need to be accurate). This year, his average has fallen to 1.1915 caches per day. (Like I'm the one to talk ... my average is only 0.0638 caches per day!) I know he's an active cacher, so we'll chalk that up to the unending winter that we're experiencing this year. I also wouldn't be surprised if, by the end of the year, his average goes back up near last year's numbers. He has almost found a cache placed on each calendar day. I promise not to archive my February 29th cache for a while yet. Looking at his stats page I'm quite envious of the travelling he's done. I know he'll soon be eligible for the Earth to the Moon Challenge (GC3D00T).

Enough about the numbers... Stonagal has been a fixture at many MBGA events. Even though he has been going to college in The Pas for the last few months, he does his best to keep in touch, urging others to find caches and attend events. I find his personality very positive and exuberant, and he is very supportive. I also have to add, after years of creating these Cacher of the Month pages and over a decade's experience of writing HTML code, that for the first time, I've had to look up the code to put emoticons on a web page. I was going to skip them, but they did enhance his story. Read on, and learn more about the MBGA's Cacher of the Month: Stonagal.

Oh, yes, they call him "The Streak" (Look at that, look at that). He is a geocaching geek (Look at that, look at that). If there's a geocache to be found, he'll be streakin' around, because he's Jordan McPeek.

What do I mean by "The Streak"? It has nothing to do with someone showing off their "shortcomings". In this case, it has to do with a streak of consecutive days with a find. This month's Cacher, KeeGee, has the longest streak of anyone in Manitoba. As of March 7, 2014, he is sitting at 1,175 consecutive days. That's 3.2 years of finding caches, often only one a day. What great restraint and preserverence he must have, as well as a patient family (although they sometimes accompany him on his hunts). I had the honour of hosting an event to celebrate KeeGee's 1,000th consecutive day of caching. I have a feeling I may need to save up some money to host the 2,000th consecutive day event. Keep reading to find out more about the MBGA's February Cacher of the Month.

As is standard when I'm going to author these introductory paragraphs, I normally start on the cacher's profile page so that I can get to know them a bit better. This time was no different. I've known J&R_2003 for some time now, meeting them (mostly him) at events and sometimes on the trail. Always affable and approachable, and always will to talk about caching. When I first met him (R), I thought he was a new cacher. Little did I know that he had already amassed over 1,000 cache finds and had cached in many countries, including Afghanistan (ed: Holy Cow!). As a member of Canada's Armed Forces, R has had an opportunity to move around Canada, having several home bases. As I'm looking through their stats page, I noticed something odd. They don't have any North Dakota or Minnesota cache finds! We must remedy that! Who's up for a road trip once the weather warms up! Keep reading to find out about the Cacher of the Month...

I met JB shortly after he started caching when he went by JBrandt36. At first, he only came to the occasional event, but now he's coming more frequently. Perhaps it's because he loves to talk caching with others, or perhaps it could be to help him with his challenge caches, maybe it's both. I didn't get to know him until we were part of a group who went to Churchill this summer. I found him to be upbeat and gregarious, which made for a fun trip.

As most of you know, I'm a bit of a stats freak. And I always find it interesting when I see someone's numbers in their GC profile. I've been at this game for almost 12 years now, and I'm a few shy of 4,000 cache finds. Then I see statistics like JB.'s, and it blows me away. He is, currently, the top Manitoba Finder, sitting at 18,328 finds. I'll wait a second for that to sink in. ... ... 18 thousand 3 hundred and twenty eight finds. He started just over 5 years ago, so what that boils down to, on average, is 9 cache finds a day since he started caching!! On his best caching day, he found 933 caches! That's 933 in one 24 hour period. One cache every minute and a half ... assuming he didn't sleep that day. I don't think I've ever achieved that number in a year, let alone in 1 day. Maybe we should get him to bottle his energy, he'd make millions!

Congratulations to JB. for being the MBGA Geocacher of the Month for November!

When I was working on my Cacher of the Month's stats spreadsheet at the beginning of the month, I was thrilled to see who came to the top of my list. This cacher is the only Manitoba cacher that I know of who has his own entry into Wikipedia. Why? Because aside from his hobby as a geocacher, he is a former member of the band, "The Guess Who". That's right! This month's Cacher of the Month is a genuine Rock Star (yes, capital R, capital S). I have been to several geocaching events where he and his current band, Wallace, Creasey, and Gardner, has played. The most memorable to me was the event at the TurdleEggs' Jenga Ranch, "Rock the Turdle". The music was amazing and people were up and dancing for most of the evening. In 2001, he received an honorary doctorate from Brandon University. (editor's note: A member of The Guess Who *and* a doctor? Does that mean we can call you Dr. Who?) Along with his musical career, beancakes has taught at West Kildonan Collegiate covering the "Guitar", "Concert Band Ensemble", and "Geography" (all very appropriate for our musical geocacher). You'll notice that the format of this month's page is a little different from the previous ones. I think I like how he managed to answer our entire questionnaire in only a few short paragraphs. Read on to learn more about the Manitoba Geocaching Association's Cacher of the Month, beancakes.